velocity, with respect to the lower attainable cost of preserving (the driving electric
power).
The students, working in groups, first tried to design their protocol of investigation, as required in a traditional guided inquiry (Banchi and Bell 2008). Although our
students had already received a traditional lecture-based instruction on condensed
matter physics and attended a session on the use of MC procedures, when they were
engaged in the learning environment, experienced numerous problems on planning
and executing a fruitful sequence of numerical experiments, frequently coming to a
standstill. At this point, the two instructors decided to actively participate to the
students’ discussion on the physics explaining the observed phenomena, not once
providing comprehensive explications to the learners, but giving comments and
suggestions, occasionally definitely incorrect, but “effective to stimulate students’
reasoning and activating a proficient scientific inquiry” (Persano-Adorno and
Pizzolato 2015). The active involvement of the instructors to the debate (as peers)
triggered student scientific questioning through the start of an efficacious inquiry:
after the initial validation of the adopted model, the stimulated inquiry learning path
articulated in three successive levels. Each one initiated from a reasoned query and
consisted of a sequence of simulative experiments whose findings were explanatory
at some level of understanding and, at the same time, stimulating the students’
thinking with additional questions to address by a deeper scientific inquiry.
16.2.3 Preliminary Phase: Model Validation
Prior to start exploiting a model developed by others, our students assessed its
validity, by comparing the computational results with experimental findings reported
in literature. In this initial phase, the learners thoroughly examined the conditions
under which real experiments have been achieved (lattice temperature, electron
density, impurity concentration, etc.). With the aim to set up the right parameters,
first concentrated their attention on the capability of the simulated data to carefully
reproduce the corresponding experimental data, by leaving the real understanding of
the physics beneath their numerical results to a successive explicative phase. In this
stage, the instructors pushed students’ inquiry toward the examination of those
model parameters, that could be suitably adjusted to achieve their objective.
16.2.4 Stage 1: Inquiry About the Physical Quantities
Affecting the Velocity-Field Characteristic
The students observed a nonlinear velocity-field characteristic (see panel (a) of
Fig. 16.1): an initial increasing trend of the electron drift velocity, followed by a
maximum (at ~10 kV/cm) and a successive region—for higher intensities of the
16 Inquiry-Based Approach and Numerical Simulations: A Powerful Integration in. . .
205
power).
The students, working in groups, first tried to design their protocol of investigation, as required in a traditional guided inquiry (Banchi and Bell 2008). Although our
students had already received a traditional lecture-based instruction on condensed
matter physics and attended a session on the use of MC procedures, when they were
engaged in the learning environment, experienced numerous problems on planning
and executing a fruitful sequence of numerical experiments, frequently coming to a
standstill. At this point, the two instructors decided to actively participate to the
students’ discussion on the physics explaining the observed phenomena, not once
providing comprehensive explications to the learners, but giving comments and
suggestions, occasionally definitely incorrect, but “effective to stimulate students’
reasoning and activating a proficient scientific inquiry” (Persano-Adorno and
Pizzolato 2015). The active involvement of the instructors to the debate (as peers)
triggered student scientific questioning through the start of an efficacious inquiry:
after the initial validation of the adopted model, the stimulated inquiry learning path
articulated in three successive levels. Each one initiated from a reasoned query and
consisted of a sequence of simulative experiments whose findings were explanatory
at some level of understanding and, at the same time, stimulating the students’
thinking with additional questions to address by a deeper scientific inquiry.
16.2.3 Preliminary Phase: Model Validation
Prior to start exploiting a model developed by others, our students assessed its
validity, by comparing the computational results with experimental findings reported
in literature. In this initial phase, the learners thoroughly examined the conditions
under which real experiments have been achieved (lattice temperature, electron
density, impurity concentration, etc.). With the aim to set up the right parameters,
first concentrated their attention on the capability of the simulated data to carefully
reproduce the corresponding experimental data, by leaving the real understanding of
the physics beneath their numerical results to a successive explicative phase. In this
stage, the instructors pushed students’ inquiry toward the examination of those
model parameters, that could be suitably adjusted to achieve their objective.
16.2.4 Stage 1: Inquiry About the Physical Quantities
Affecting the Velocity-Field Characteristic
The students observed a nonlinear velocity-field characteristic (see panel (a) of
Fig. 16.1): an initial increasing trend of the electron drift velocity, followed by a
maximum (at ~10 kV/cm) and a successive region—for higher intensities of the
16 Inquiry-Based Approach and Numerical Simulations: A Powerful Integration in. . .
205